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Carbon offsets fail to cut global heating due to ‘intractable’ systemic problems, study says

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/06/carbon-offsets-fail-cut-global-heating-intractable-systemic-problems-study
balsoft @lemmy.ml - 2mon

Fucking of course! It's a scheme where a rich guy pays some other rich guy to produce a piece of paper in which he pinky-promises to slightly reduce his immense carbon emissions, mostly for the first guy to satisfy a regulator or for marketing purposes. Nothing can go wrong here folks, because all rich guys always keep their promises, especially when there's no incentive for them to do so!

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iii - 2mon

The major issues the authors seem to identify are:

  1. Non-Additional Credits

Projects are credited for actions that would have happened anyway.

  1. Impermanence

Many offset projects are temporary and can be easily undone. For example: Tree-planting projects where forests are later destroyed by eg Wildfires

  1. Leakage

Offset projects often simply displace environmental problems rather than solving them.

  1. Double-Counting

Multiple parties claim credit for the same emissions reduction.

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